Bears Lose Again, Fall To Second Place

The Basketball Bears are probably back in blizzard-ravaged Springfield by now. They’ll realize they don’t have class, hit the sack, and head to practice the next morning. According to Adam Leonard’s twitter account, the shooting guard tweeted: “These 3 losses were flukes! We will prove it. If you jumped off our wagon, deuces. But if your still with us… Watch what happens next.”

The Bears lost to the Evansville Purple Aces Wednesday night to drop to second place in the Valley standings. After a sluggish first half, another Bears team replaced the lackadaisical first half squad. The second half Bears were focused and gritty — but the Aces were the better team on the court and won 77-65.

This was the worst basketball the Bears have displayed since the Tulsa game. Their spacing was sloppy, they fell in love with the 3-pointer early (and couldn’t get it going), and their defensive problems (see the Bears defensive woes here.) were magnified. How did the Bears lose? Right here: the Bears scored only 20 points in the paint compared to Evansville’s 42. The Bears also turned the ball over 15 times to which the Aces were able to score 22 points off of the turnovers.

It’s officially time to sound the alarm — the Bears chances of garnering any “at-large” bids have evaporated. Their ticket to the NCAA Tournament will only be punched if they win the conference tournament in St. Louis. “Arch Madness” is the only hope of tournament dancing. The Bears backs are against the wall (Or is it a cave? Tree? Oh well…) and it is imperative they respond positively, or this could very well be the beginning of the end of a promising season.

Here are a coupe of the Bears on their twitter accounts, reacting to Wednesday night’s loss:

Center Will Creekmore — “God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you gotta hit rock bottom before you get to the top, which is where we’ll be.” (MSU_Creeks44)

Point guard Nafis Ricks — “As u make mistakes u should become wiser by learning from what u have experience and turn it into positive energy” (Mostate2)

Adam Leonard — Can’t wait for morning! I’ll be in the gym. Nice and early. (MSU_10_Bears)

The Bears seem to be taking this loss to heart. The Indiana State Sycamores are coming to JQH Arena on Saturday; the team that delivered the first Valley loss to the Bears a couple weeks ago. And on Saturday (and throughout), we will see the Bears true colors — and no, not the maroon and white — the colors of a team in desperation, with goals of March basketball.